


Caged and Restless

by RosalindInPants



Series: Choice and Consequence [3]
Category: The Great Library Series - Rachel Caine
Genre: Angst, Dad Wolfe, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Trauma, background Wolfe/Santi - Freeform, canon gap fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-10
Updated: 2019-12-10
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:21:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21739027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RosalindInPants/pseuds/RosalindInPants
Summary: Set during chapter 14 of Paper and Fire.In the Iron Tower, Wolfe can't sleep, so he goes to check on the children. It turns out Morgan is having a hard time sleeping, too.
Relationships: Christopher Wolfe & Keria Morning, Christopher Wolfe & Morgan Hault
Series: Choice and Consequence [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1566844
Comments: 4
Kudos: 4





	Caged and Restless

Christopher Wolfe couldn’t sleep. The bed was the softest he’d ever been in, the light of the electric lamps warm and bright, and Nic’s arm a constant and soothing weight on his side. None of it helped. When he closed his eyes, he saw stone walls and felt the chill of the prison on his skin. When he opened them, the iron walls seemed to close in around him.

When Wolfe sat up, shifting Nic’s arm to the mattress, Nic’s eyes fluttered open, looking up at him in question.

“Can’t sleep,” Wolfe said with a shrug and a shake of his head. “You know how it is. I’m going to check on the children. I won't be long.”

Nic patted his knee with a drowsy hand. “Need me to come?”

“No.” The last thing he wanted was to further disrupt Nic’s sleep. They would all need Nic well-rested if they were to stand a chance of escaping this place come morning. “I’ll be safe enough; we can trust my mother that far.”

“But no farther.”

Wolfe kissed his partner’s cheek, so prickly at this time of night. “Indeed. Sleep, my dear. I expect tomorrow will be a long day.”

A final caress to that stubbly cheek and he stood, tucking the sheets back in place around his lover before heading out the door.

The doors here were as thin as ever; no true privacy to be had. One by one, he put his ear to them, listening for the sounds of slumber. The creak of bed springs from Jess's room, the rustle of sheets from Khalila's. They slept fitfully, but they slept. Soft snoring from Thomas's. He felt some of the tension in his body loosen at that last one. He worried about the boy, alone so soon after his escape. Even in Nic’s arms, Wolfe hadn’t been able to sleep on his own first night of freedom.

He doubted this calm would last. They would have to watch Thomas. Provided any of them lived that long, which currently seemed unlikely.

That would require Keria Morning to come through for them, and Wolfe had long since learned better than to trust in his mother’s promises.

Down to the Medica level next, where the attendant on duty assured him Glain was well, and finally down again to the lower-ranking Obscurists’ residential levels. The lights in the stairwell on these levels were dimmed at night, but his feet remembered the steps well enough, even after all these years. 

He’d played here, back when he was small enough that his lack of power was not yet apparent to the other children. They used to run up and down the stairs to visit each other or to beg for sweets in the kitchens, a pack of shrieking children that thinned with each passing year as those without talent were weeded out. Until they all learned, one way or another, who was chosen and who was to be rejected, and he found himself unwelcome among them.

The shadows between the lamps hung thicker now. No matter how carefully he placed his feet, each step seemed to echo, as did the brush of his silk robe on the steps behind him. Shouldn’t have worn the thing. He gathered it in one hand like the skirt of a ballgown and continued downward, ducking momentarily into a hall at one landing to avoid a pair of patrolling guards. They might not have orders to stop him, but he had no interest in finding out.

Nic would have talked to them. He’d gotten the location of Morgan’s room that way, along with information about the Tower’s defenses and word from Rome. His ability to make friends and quickly resume old acquaintances never ceased to impress Wolfe. For all he knew, the boots echoing on the stairs above him belonged to old friends of Nic’s from training.

To Wolfe, those guards could only ever be jailers.

The halls on the level containing Morgan’s room were even darker than the stairwell, dark enough that he couldn’t see his own outstretched hand once the door to the stairwell closed. Another measure of control, discouraging the Obscurists from leaving their quarters without officially going so far as to lock them in. They saved the rooms that locked from the outside for the most severe cases of disobedience, and Wolfe thanked all the gods Morgan hadn’t gotten herself confined to one of those. He took out a small portable glow, only just bright enough to see his feet against the carpeted floor, and made his way down the hall until he reached the door labeled as hers.

Hearing silence at that door, he knocked, softly enough that he would not wake her if she slept.

He wasn’t particularly surprised when the door opened, mere moments later, at first only enough to see a single eye and a sliver of pale skin, and then wide enough to allow him into the bedroom, not so different from the one he shared with Nic upstairs. The only light was from a little reading lamp on the nightstand, enough to illuminate the pages of the journal left beneath it, but little more.

Without a word, Morgan beckoned him in, moving to the small table in the corner of the room to turn on another lamp. Just a single bulb, its warm but dim light insufficient to chase the shadows from the room. Wolfe shut the door behind himself, closing out the greater darkness of the hall, and joined her there.

Silence hung over them. She’d been crying; he could tell by the redness of her eyes. Like him, she’d slept in her clothes, if she’d slept at all, and her hair tumbled down her back in a mess of tangled curls.

He could have been looking in the mirror. And he was, in part, the cause of her distress.

“I should apologize,” he said, because something had to be said. “I sentenced you to misery I can only imagine when I turned you over to my mother, and the fact that I warned you of the possibility does not absolve me of blame.”

“But you  _ won’t  _ apologize, will you?” Her voice was flat, her eyes tired. But for all her apparent weariness, she’d caught his subtext. She always had been one of the brighter ones in the class.

That made what had been done to her all the worse. What _he_ had done. He would not deny his responsibility.

But neither would he beg forgiveness. “No. I will not. There are some things I am not willing to gamble. Whatever regrets I may have, I cannot tell you I should have done differently. You deserve better than to hear soothing lies.”

“They would have put you back in those cells if you had disobeyed, wouldn’t they?”

His breath caught in his throat. He could feel a tremor coming on in his hands, and he moved them to his lap, under the table, tucking them into his sleeves for good measure. “Not only me. They would have taken Nic,” he said, the words spilling out unconsidered, unplanned.

Morgan nodded, as if she had expected to hear that. “I should be angry with you. But after seeing that place…” She wrapped her arms around herself, a shiver running down her body. “I forgive you, Scholar Wolfe. And I’m glad we got Thomas out of there when we did.”

“As am I.” Short-lived as the boy’s freedom would likely be, Wolfe couldn’t bring himself to regret the attempt, as little choice as they’d had in making it. Regret would come later, he supposed, if the worst came to pass. “Would that I could promise to do the same for you.”

“You don’t think we’ll escape.” Morgan’s hand went to the golden collar around her neck, tracing the edges of it. “You think we’ll die here.”

“That is a likely outcome, yes.” Not the worst he could imagine, but he saw no need to frighten the poor child with every horror his mind could conjure up.

With her elbows on the table, Morgan buried her face in her hands. She looked so weary, as if she could barely hold herself upright.

“You can’t sleep, can you?” Wolfe asked. When she nodded in agreement, he continued, “Are you in immediate danger? From Gregory?”

“It isn’t that,” she said, straightening and folding her hands on the table. “The timing isn’t right for that. I just… it’s nonsensical, really. But knowing that doesn’t make a difference, does it?” She looked at him with eyes too shrewd for a child so exhausted. As if she could see all his cracks as easily as he saw hers.

“It doesn’t,” he agreed. “Would it help to have someone here with you?”

She considered that for a long moment before she shook her head. “No. It wouldn’t.”

That was firm enough to accept as a reasoned decision and not a denial of need. He knew both well enough to tell the difference by now, and he could think of reasons enough that she might find another’s presence in her room more unnerving than reassuring.

Before he could think of any other assistance to offer, she said, “I’m alright. Really, I am. I’ll get myself to sleep sooner or later. I always do. You should try to sleep, too. I’m sure you’re exhausted.”

She stood to walk him to the door, and he followed.

“You don’t have to join us,” he said as they reached the door. “Unlike the rest of us, you could save your own life. My mother would protect you if you chose to remain here.”

“Is that the choice you would make, Scholar?” Morgan asked, her voice tight with simmering fury. “Would you choose slavery? Would you choose to be bred like livestock? Would you choose the protection of a cage?”

“Never.” His voice came out in a choked whisper. Thoughts of what his life would have been had he been born with more power had haunted his dreams for years. Might have haunted him still, had worse nightmares not come along.

“Then you understand that I would rather die than be confined to this.”

“Yes. I understand.” Too well. Far too well. “Rest as well as you can. We will all need what strength we can gather if we are to have any hope of survival.”

“And you as well, Scholar.” She let him out, and closed the door behind him.

It surprised him not in the least to see his mother waiting on the landing when he opened the door that led to the stairway. Still dressed in the robes of her office with her long hair neatly styled, she apparently had not even attempted to sleep. When she saw him, her stern features softened and she said, too warmly, “I thought I might find you here.”

Keeping his distance, he asked, “What do you want, Mother?”

Thankfully, his mother halted her advance. She looked past him, down the hall that led to Morgan’s room, and shook her head. “You worry so much for those children. But there’s no need to be so afraid, Christopher. As you can see, we’ve taken good care of them.”

“Oh, yes, such good care you’ve taken.” He took a single step out onto the landing, just far enough to shut the door behind him. “Such care to separate out the one you want so that when we leave, you won’t lose your precious new broodmare.”

She looked away. “That was Gregory’s doing, not mine. Would you rather I overrule him and alert him to the fact that I intend to enable your escape?”

“My escape. Not hers.” Itching with agitation, he wished he could have paced the landing without putting himself closer to her. He settled for a sideways step toward the stairway leading upward.

A flash of irritation crossed her face, there and gone. Within an instant she’d schooled her face back into its artificial warmth. “That isn’t what I meant.”

“Oh, I know perfectly well what you meant, Mother. You like to keep your options open, as always. Unless you’ve come to inform me that you are ready to Translate all of us out of here immediately?” 

“I would have thought you would prefer to allow your injured soldier more time to recover?”

She had him with that, and they both knew it. “If you have no further need of me, I should return to the bed you have been so kind as to provide me.” With a sharp turn that made his robe flare out around him, he started up the stairs.

“Christopher, wait.” She followed him, only a step or two behind. Doing well for her age. Or was he doing badly for his? He quickened his pace.

Her hand brushed his arm, and he whirled around, his heart hammering in his chest. “What do you want?”

Something in his expression must have warned her off, because she took a step back, her hand dropping to her side. “I worry about you, my son. Going back to that place again, after being so badly hurt…” For once, she seemed at a loss for words. She sighed. “I wish I could keep you here longer. Long enough for you to heal before you’re thrust back into danger.”

He might have laughed if not for the fear that such an outburst of emotion might lead to tears or tremors. “You would heal the damage caused by one prison by trapping me in another? I think not,  _ Mother _ .” Turning away, he started up the stairs again.

No footsteps followed. But below him, his mother said, “I am sorry, Christopher. For everything. I’ve only ever wanted to protect you. To help you.”

“Then send us, _all_ of us, away from this gilded cage of yours,” he said without turning, without slowing. “Before it becomes our grave.”

If she had any answer to that, he was already too far from her to hear.


End file.
